57 entries from January 2016

January 29, 2016

BACKGROUNDDavid Cameron has been condemned over his response to the refugee crisis in Europe after describing people in a camp in Calais as a "bunch of migrants". The Refugee Council said Mr Cameron's comments were "disappointing" and called on him to show political leadership in response to the "desperate" situation. Opposition MPs also lined up to criticise the Prime Minister, who made the "inflammatory" comments during a Commons clash with Labour opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn visited the camp last week and found absolute squalor with unaccompanied children roaming around. Read more >>

THE CARTOONThe cartoon by Peter Brookes from The Times is based on the famous scene from Charles Dickens' novel Oliver Twist in which Oliver, who has been taken to the workhouse, dares to ask for more gruel (a kind of porridge). You can see the original illustration by Cruikshank here. In Peter Brookes' version, a boy from the Calais migrant camp asks David Cameron (in the role of Mr Bumble!) if he can come to Britain. Cameron/Bumble responds by kneeing him in the groin. One assumes the answer is 'No'! Mrs Bumble, on the left, is portrayed by Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne.

Everyone dreams of winning the lottery, but if you won, what's the first thing you'd do? That's the subject of this great ad from the Irish National Lottery.

LESSON IDEASI've used this ad a few times in class with my EM Normandie students and it always works well. Here are a few suggestions.• Show the video and stop it at the 36-second mark. Ask students what they think the ad is for (they probably won't get it). You can discuss what's happening in the various scenes. (There are people missing. Where have they gone?)• Continue to the 55-second mark. Ask them again. They might get it now. Show the last few seconds.• Go back through the ad working on vocabulary (see below for a synopsis).• Do some work on the grammar. "What would you do if you won the lottery?" is an example of the second conditional (see here and here for more on that).• Get students to talk about the lottery. See questions below.• You could also use this Lottery Role Play, in which a family has to decide how to spend a lottery windfall.• And here's a PowerPoint with some lottery ads and statistics.

SYNOPSISThe ad opens with a man running along a street. He’s wearing a wedding suit, so perhaps he’s late for a wedding. The next scene shows a church. The bride is waiting at the altar, but the groom (the man we saw before?) is missing. Next, we see an empty pub. A pint of Guinness (we’re in Ireland!), is overflowing and the barman is nowhere to be seen. A boy on the toilet calls for his Mummy. The phone rings in an empty cubicle in an office. The news anchor hands over to the weather presenter but she’s not there. A surgeon asks his absent nurse for a scalpel. A gang of bank robbers jump into a getaway car but the driver is not there. A chemistry class runs wild as the teacher is missing. A hairdresser has left a customer with half his head shaved. A cleaner has left the floor waxer running and disappeared. Same thing with the lawn mower and iron. The bridegroom reaches the runway at an airport. He is joined by a crowd of people all converging on a plane. A man in a Hawaiian shirt is standing on the steps of the plane. There’s a bottle of champagne and a bunch of flowers on a table beside him. He tells the crowd, “The Bahamas. Two weeks. On me.” The people cheer and celebrate. We are supposed to deduce that they are friends and family he’s taking on holiday at his expense ("on me") after winning the lottery.

DISCUSSION• Have you ever bought a lottery ticket? What about scratchcards?• What would you do if you won £10,000. What about £1m, or £50m?• Does winning a lot of money always improve people's lives?• Why do people play the lottery when the chances of winning are so low?• Is it right that the state should encourage people to gamble?

January 28, 2016

If you're familiar with the movies of Jason Statham (notably the 'Transporter' series), you know what a Cockney accent sounds like. So why not watch this video to learn about the various features of the Cockney accent, and even take a little test at the end!

COMMENTSOK, I'm guessing you realized it's not really Jason Statham, but I reckon he does a pretty good impression. The video was created by Aly Williams and Tom Turner who run the Papa Teach Me website. You can find more of their videos on their YouTube Channel, where they have a playlist devoted to the British accent among other things.

January 27, 2016

Here's a quiz I created for my EM Normandie students on the topic of 'Health and Illness' with FlipQuiz. FlipQuiz is a free online tool that provides educators with a quick way to create gameshow-style boards for the classroom using an interactive whiteboard or videoprojector. There are thirty questions in six categories. Click here to begin. And see all my FliqQuiz quizzes here.

TIPSYou can change the text size in the Game Settings (bottom left). You can also double the number of points, which I usually do on the last round to make things even more exciting! And, of course, some sort of prize for the winning team is also nice.

LESSON IDEAGet your students to make their own FlipQuiz quizzes and share them.

Read the introductory 'blurb', watch the ad, and see what you think. Then read my comments below.

INTRODUCTIONThe first ever start-up whose employees will go to all your meetings in your place, in all 43 destinations nationwide where Widerøe is flying, leaving you more free time. On www.norwegianmeetingservices.no, you can book a person to go to your meeting in your place, a time and a place. The website allows you to specify the type of meeting from among countless alternatives: from strategy conferences, to sales meetings to parent-teacher evenings or quiet dinners for two. And it doesn’t stop here: you can also state the details of your personality, food allergies, preferred drinks and meeting behaviours of the person you are meeting. After everything is completed, the most important part follows: Norwegian Meeting Services handpicks the meeting “stand-in” who best suits the client’s needs.

COMMENTSo what did you think? Did you realize it's a spoof (= humorous imitation of something)? Norwegian Meeting Services doesn't really exist as such, although the website is real enough. It's actually a rather brilliant campaign for the Norwegian airline Widerøe (there's a clue in the blurb above). The hoax is so well constructed that you can actually book an 'agent' to go to a meeting on www.norwegianmeetingservices.no (try it, it's fun), and even get as far as the Paypal invoice. I'm not sure what would happen if you clicked on 'Pay', however, as I didn't try! Once you know it's a joke, you can appreciate all the excellent touches of humour in the video and on the website (those hoverboards, and the 'stock photo' look of it all). Excellent!

LESSON IDEASThis would be a great video to use with a business English class - especially on April 1st. You could present it as a 'real' service, and ask if they think it's a good idea. See if anyone suspects all is not what it seems. I've also done a quiz based on the voiceover below.

TRANSCRIPTTo build and maintain strong business relations, people need to meet face-to-face. But do you always need to be there yourself. Well, not any more. Norwegian Meeting Services are specialized in attending meetings for others. Your meeting is our business. We’re experienced with all kinds of meetings: board meetings, negotiations, strategy development, and emergency meetings. Let’s not forget conferences and seminars, team building and leisure events. Private matters are also our business. With help from Widerøe and their frequent departures to more than 40 destinations across Norway, we can attend your meeting, anywhere, any time. To book one of our agents or get more information, visit norwegianmeetingservices.no today.

January 26, 2016

BACKGROUNDA woman in Worcester claims she bought the unclaimed £33million Lotto ticket everyone is searching for – but put it in the washing machine. You can see the winning numbers, but the date and barcode have been scrubbed off by water damage, she claims, as it was still in a pair of jeans when they went in the laundry. The unnamed woman rushed into the Ambleside News with her tattered ticket yesterday, according to the Times. She told the paper: ‘I’ve been a nervous wreck. I haven’t slept all night. ‘Since I found it in my jeans pocket, my daughter and I have been drying it out with a hairdryer. You can see the 2016 but not the date.’ Read more >>

THE CARTOONIn the cartoon by Mac from the Daily Mail, a representative from Camelot (the company that runs the UK lottery) has just delivered a cheque to the house of the woman who claimed to have the winning ticket. Her daughter calls up the stairs to tell her that the £33 million cheque has arrived but that "they're sorry it's blank but it's been in the wash" - just like her 'winning' ticket!

EXPLANATIONThe cartoon should be easy enough to understand. A blank cheque is one with nothing written on it. This one is blank because it's been 'in the wash', i.e., in the washing machine.

LESSON IDEASThis cartoon and story would be a good introduction to the classic questions "What would you do if you won the lottery?" and "Does money always bring happiness?", as well as the whole subject of betting and gambling in general. There are always loads of lottery stories in the news, so it's a good topic for reading activities as well. In the past, I've put students in groups of four and given each one a different article about a lottery winner. They then have to sum up the story in their own words to the others in the group and decide which was the most interesting/surprising/tragic/heartwarming story. The excellent PIE has a couple of good podcasts about the lottery too (Episodes 84 and 85).

This 60-second video illustrates how a modern car (in this case a Vauxhall) is manufactured in just 8 hours using an efficient and largely automated production line.

COMMENTThis video would be ideal for teachers who want to illustrate the use of the passive when describing a process. I've embedded a sequencing activity below, but there are lots of other things you could do with the transcript. For example, there are very few sequence markers (First, next, etc.), so one activity could be to add those to the text. Or create a gap-fill activity by removing all the passive verbs.

QUIZ

TRANSCRIPTSteel coil is unrolled and flattened. Flattened steel is pressed to body panels. Pressed parts are assembled by robots and production operators. The car is sealed, primed and painted. Wiring, sound-proofing, upholstery and cockpit are added. Engine, brakes, suspension and exhaust are fitted by robots. Seats, wheels and doors and fitted last. Car goes through stringent quality tests before being driven off the line.

January 25, 2016

Here's a Quizlet flashcard set on the topic of Transport and Logistics I created for my EM Normandie students. There are 100 items in all with the French translation. Click on 'Choose a Study Mode' (bottom right) to change the study mode or play games. You can access all my Quizlet sets, which now feature over 2,500 words, here.

BACKGROUNDThe north-eastern United States was hit by a massive blizzard on Sunday, bringing Washington DC and New York among all major cities in the region to a standstill and killing at least 19 people. An estimated 85 million people found themselves in the eye of the storm, named 'Jonas'. Around 200,000 people were left without power across the country. Read more >>

THE CARTOONThe cartoon by Brian Adcock from The Independent shows US Republican presidential nomination candidate Donald Trump and former governor of Alaska Sarah Palin standing on a snow-covered White House lawn. Trump says that if he was president, he would have "a complete shutdown of snow entering the United States". This echoes his call for a "total and complete shutdown" of the country’s borders to Muslims in the wake of the San Bernardino terrorist attack. Palin adds that he would also "kick storm Jonas's ass", which is a nod to the rhetorical question she asked during her speech endorsing Trump last week: "Are you ready for a commander-in-chief who will let our warriors do their job and go kick Isis ass?"

GRAMMARThis cartoon nicely illustrates the use of the second conditional in English: 'If' + past tense, 'would' + infinitive. For example, "If I won the lottery, I would buy a big house". See here and here for more on this grammar point. Trump could also have said "If I were president", which is also correct. See here and here for more on this.

VOCABULARYTo kick someone's ass means to punish or defeat someone: If he gives you any problems, let me know and I’ll kick his ass.

Today is the birthday of Robert Burns, Scotland's most famous poet. Rabbie Burns, as the Scottish people call him, was born on January 25th, 1759, and every year on Burns' Night, Scottish people all over the world celebrate his birthday by reading his poems, eating haggis (a traditional Scottish meat dish) and drinking whisky. Many of his poems are in the Scots language and you will hear some in the video. You can download a worksheet for the video here and a full transcript here. The British Council also has some great interactive activities based on this video.

QUIZ

BURNS NIGHTBurns Night, in effect a second national day, is celebrated on Burns's birthday, 25 January, with Burns suppers around the world, and is more widely observed in Scotland than the official national day, St. Andrew's Day. The first Burns supper was held in 1802, and the format has changed little since. The supper starts with a general welcome and announcements, followed with the Selkirk Grace. After the grace comes the piping and cutting of the haggis, when Burns's famous "Address to a Haggis" is read and the haggis is cut open. The event usually allows for people to start eating just after the haggis is presented. At the end of the meal, a series of toasts and replies is made. This is when the toast to "the immortal memory", an overview of Burns's life and work, is given. The event usually concludes with the singing of "Auld Lang Syne". [source: Wikipedia]

January 24, 2016

BACKGROUNDFormer British defence secretary Liam Fox tore into David Cameron's renegotiation efforts with Brussels, as he made a surprise speech at the launch of the new Grassroots Out (GO) campaign on 23 January. The senior Conservative MP accused his party's leader of taking the "political begging bowl" around the continent in a bid to get European leaders to back his plan to block EU migrants in the UK from accessing welfare payments for at least four years. The comments come after Cameron signaled a U-turn over his benefits proposal, which makes up one of his four major reforms. The prime minister said he was "open" to alternative methods to reduce net migration to the UK when he spoke in the Czech Republic on 22 January. Read more >>

THE CARTOONThe cartoon by Peter Brookes from The Times shows UK Prime Minister David Cameron walking along a section of road in the shape of the letter 'U' (in fact it's the 'U' of 'EU'). He's carrying a red briefcase labelled 'REFORM', and says, "We're moving forward".

EXPLANATIONIn the literal sense, a U-turn is a ​turn made by a ​car in ​order to go back in the ​direction from which it has come. • It is ​illegal to do/make a U-turn on a ​motorway. However, the expression is also used metaphorically to mean 'a ​complete ​change from one ​opinion or ​plan of ​action to an ​opposite one'. • The ​prime ​minister did/made a ​quick U-turn in ​response to all the ​adverse ​publicity.Margaret Thatcher made a famous play on words using "U-turn" in her speech to the Conservative Party Conference on 10 October 1980. The phrase made reference to Thatcher's refusal to perform a "U-turn" in response to opposition to her liberalisation of the economy: "To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the 'U-turn', I have only one thing to say: 'You turn [U-turn] if you want to. The lady's not for turning." The cartoonist may or may not have been thinking of this, but in any case, Cameron's comment about moving forward is clearly meant to be ironic.

January 23, 2016

MEANINGThis idiom can be used in two different ways: one positive and one negative. Let's start with the positive. 'To have your cake and eat it' means to do or get two good things at the same ​time, esp. things that are not usually ​possible to have together: I ​work at ​home so I can raise my ​family and still ​earn ​money. That way I get to have my ​cake and ​eat it too. However, the saying is often used with a negative sense: If you want more local services, you'll have to pay more tax. You can't have ​your cake and ​eat it too.

NOTEThe most popular form of this saying—"You can’t have your cake and eat it too"— confuses many people because they mistakenly suppose the word "have" means "eat", as in "Have a piece of cake for dessert." A more logical version of this saying is "You can’t eat your cake and have it too", meaning that if you eat your cake you won’t have it any more. The point is that if you eat your cake right now you won’t have it to eat later. "Have" means "possess" in this context, not "eat". See here for the origin of this expression.

January 22, 2016

You've probably heard of the IoT (Internet of Things). But what is it? Multinational e-commerce giants such as IBM, Google and Samsung are moving fast to develop products and services that are designed to support the IoT. It is widely viewed as one of the most significant opportunities arising from the rapid development of digitally-enabled devices and transactions. In this engaging short animated video (one of six that will help you understand Davos 2016), the World Economic Forum team explain what the IoT is, highlight some of the key opportunities and also threats posed. A great visual introduction to what will become a vital part of digital business in the near future. Via tutor2u.

QUIZ

LESSON IDEAS• Stop the video after six seconds and see if your students can answer the question.• The voiceover contains a lot of numbers and passives, which could be the focus of a lesson.• Discuss the questions raised by the video. Will data be collected, shared and stored to improve our lives? Or will it be used to control us?

TRANSCRIPTWhat do an umbrella, a shark, a house plant, the brake pads in a mining truck and a smoke detector have in common? They can all be connected online, and in fact, they are. By 2022 it is expected that more than a trillion sensors will be connected to the internet. If all things are connected, it will shift the way we do business and use resources, and will eventually yield massive amounts of data. But who owns this data and how safely will it be kept? By 2020, around 22% of the world's cars will be connected to the internet. That's 290 million vehicles. And by 2024, more than 50% of home internet traffic will be used by appliances and devices rather than just for communication and entertainment. In this scenario, what if your car or home got hacked? The internet of things raises huge questions on privacy and security that have to be addressed by governments, corporations, and consumers. But if we get things right, it will also bring unprecedented efficiency to processes that will no longer be offline. Imagine cows in a farm being monitored to obtain health reports that will help farmers feed them better, or tracking the behaviour of complex industrial machinery, preventing accidents and shortening downtime for maintenance. All kinds of devices will be able to gather and share any type of information from their environment, seamlessly organizing themselves to make our lives smarter and safer. A world where all things are connected is going to bring endless opportunities for most human activities, but it will depend on us whether we are going to take advantage of it, or let it take advantage of us. Will data be collected, shared and stored to improve our lives? Or will it be used to control us?

BACKGROUNDDavid Cameron has condemned President Vladimir Putin for presiding over the “state sponsored murder” of the Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko. A public inquiry into the radioactive poisoning of the former KGB officer found that Mr Putin “probably” sanctioned the assassination by two Russian agents in London in 2006. Mr Cameron said the UK had frozen the suspects’ assets as punishment for the “absolutely appalling” crime, but critics described his response as “weak”. Mr Litvinenko’s widow Marina, who has fought a 10-year campaign for the truth, demanded economic sanctions against Russia, a travel ban on Mr Putin and the expulsion of all Russian intelligence operatives from Britain. Read more >>

CARTOONThe cartoon by Adams from The Telegraph shows Russian President Vladimir Putin talking on the phone with UK Prime Minister David Cameron. We can deduce that Cameron has phoned Putin on the 'hot line' to strongly protest about Russian state involvement in Litvinenko's death. Putin responds, "Strong words, Mr Cameron. Let's discuss it over a cup of tea ..."

EXPLANATIONAlexander Litvinenko was poisoned by two Russian agents who laced his tea with the deadly isotope polonium-210 during a meeting at a hotel in Mayfair in November 2006. He died three weeks later. Putin's "invitation" is therefore more like a threat.

GRAMMAR Let's is a contraction of 'let us' and is used to make suggestions. • Let's spend the night together. See here for more on this grammar point.

NOTEJust to prove that great cartoonists sometimes think alike, Dave Brown has a very similar cartoon in The Independent.

January 21, 2016

LESSON IDEAThis would be a great video to use with a Business English class. The cafe has been reviewed by several media outlets, so you could get your students to do some research to find out how they can offer such low prices. You could also use the video to introduce a project in which students would have to come up with and present their own ideas for original cafes or restaurants.

TRANSCRIPTREPORTER: So when people think of a one pound store, everything a pound, it’s not really something associated with quality. How do you get over that? OWNER: Uh, that’s correct. A lot of people assume a pound shop is going to sell low-quality items? Really we’re relying on people coming in, looking at the products, and actually tasting the products, and then telling other people about it. REPORTER: The other thing I wondered was, if inflation goes up, does that mean your portions have to get smaller if you’re going to remain the one pound store? OWNER: So that’s typical of Poundland. They go – they started with like sort of ten pencils for a pound, and then down to eight and seven, etcetera, etcetera. Uh, no, we don’t have any intention to do that because ultimately you can’t make a sandwich that much smaller. You know, we’ll end up selling a quarter of a sandwich … REPORTER: You already sell half a sandwich at the moment. OWNER: Correct, but it still works out at a third of the price. CUSTOMER 1: I think it’s good value for money. Its portions are small so you can get a few little different things. CUSTOMER 2: I like the concept. You can come in and have a half sandwich, so it’s really stuffed. OWNER: Looking at sort of the past four, five years with the recession, uh, and the austerity measures and coming out of that, we wanted to try something a bit different. I’ve seen a similar concept both in Israel and in New Zealand, which focused more on coffee. CUSTOMER 3: It’s quick and easy. REPORTER: How much do you end up spending? CUSTOMER 3: Three quid normally. REPORTER: Is that cheaper than you would normally spend elsewhere? CUSTOMER: A little bit cheaper.